Sort pandas DataFrame by Multiple Columns in Python (Example)

This tutorial shows how to order the rows of a pandas DataFrame based on multiple columns in the Python programming language.

Table of contents:

Sound good? Let’s get started:

Example Data & Add-On Libraries

First, we have to import the pandas library:

import pandas as pd                           # Import pandas library in Python

We also need to create some data that we can use in the examples below:

data = pd.DataFrame({'x1':range(0, 8),       # Create example DataFrame
                     'x2':['C', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'A', 'A', 'B', 'A'],
                     'x3':['a', 'b', 'c', 'b', 'c', 'b', 'a', 'c']})
print(data)                                  # Print example DataFrame

Table 1 shows that our exemplifying data is constituted of eight rows and three columns.

The variables x2 and x3 contain characters that we will use in the following example to rearrange the rows of our data set.

Example: Ordering pandas DataFrame Based On Multiple Columns Using sort_values() Function

In this example, I’ll show how to sort the rows of a pandas DataFrame by two or more columns.

For this, we can use the sort_values function. Within the sort_values function, we have to specify the column names based on which we want to sort our data as shown below:

data_new = data.sort_values(['x2', 'x3'])    # Sort DataFrame
print(data_new)                              # Print new DataFrame

Table 2 shows the output of the previously shown Python programming syntax – A new pandas DataFrame where the rows have been sorted according to the columns x2 and x3.

Video, Further Resources & Summary

I have recently released a video on my YouTube channel, which shows the Python syntax of this article. In the video, I show and explain the Python programming code of this article in some more detail:

Do you need further explanations on the topic? Then I recommend watching the following video on the YouTube channel of Corey Schafer. He’s explaining how to sort pandas DataFrames in Python based on different examples as in this tutorial.

Furthermore, you may have a look at some of the other tutorials on this homepage. I have published numerous tutorials already.

• Sort pandas DataFrame by Date in Python
• Sort pandas DataFrame by Column in Python
• How to Manipulate a pandas DataFrame in Python
• Change Order of Columns in pandas DataFrame
• pandas Library Tutorial in Python
• Python Programming Tutorials

To summarize: You have learned in this tutorial how to sort the rows of a pandas DataFrame based on multiple variables in the Python programming language. Please tell me about it in the comments section below, if you have additional comments or questions.